The polymer-based photonic devices characterization bench of the d'Alembert Institute facilities is used to carry out measurements of the optical responses from waveguided photonic devices in the NIR spectral region, using a tunable laser source and InGaAs photodetectors. These polymer-based photonic devices are designed and fabricated for optical communication applications such as polymeric electroptic modulators and for the chemical and biochemical sensing applications such as polymeric optofluidic sensors.
The polymer-based photonic devices characterization bench is situated in an experimental room of 20 m2 in area, equipped with a 180 x 200 cm2 optical table on which there are suitable setups to inject the laser beam into the optical waveguided device under test, and to collect their optical output responses. Experimental measurements are controlled by a computer driven by a specific software for static and dynamic characterizations of photonic devices. In static characterization, for instance, the measurement bench can be used to characterize the spectral responses of optical microresonators in the spectral domain of the tunable laser. But it can be also adapted to carry out the dynamic characterization of active photonic devices such as electrooptic modulators or switches at a fixed wavelength and with a low or high-frequency excitation.
The bench can also be transformed into an optofluidic characterization bench by adding a microfluidic station to the optical setup for realizing the real-time continuous monitoring of an optofluidic sensor.